• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Manor Lords |Early Access OT| Good manors are made up of peasant sacrifices

Maiden Voyage

Gold™ Member
RcDfJtb.png
Manor Lords is a medieval strategy game featuring in-depth city building, large-scale tactical battles, and complex economic and social simulations. Rule your lands as a medieval lord -- the seasons pass, the weather changes, and cities rise and fall.​
Developer: Slavic Magic
Publisher: Hooded Horse​
Release Date: 26 April 2024​
Platforms: Steam | GOG | Epic | PC Gamepass
Genre: City Builder, Simulation, Strategy​
Price: $39.99 USD | £34.99 GBP | €39.99 EUR -- 25% discount for launch​


ABOUT​

This game is a passion project started by a solo developer.
image_01_loop.gif
Manor Lords is a strategy game that allows you to experience the life of a medieval lord. Grow your starting village into a bustling city, manage resources and production chains, and expand your lands through conquest.

Inspired by the art and architecture of late 14th century Franconia, Manor Lords prioritizes historical accuracy wherever possible, using it to inform gameplay mechanics and visuals alike. Common medieval tropes are avoided in favor of historical accuracy, in order to make the world feel more authentic, colorful, and believable.

headline_01ML.png

image_02_loop.gif

Manor Lords provides a gridless city-building experience with full freedom of placement and rotation. Building mechanics are inspired by the growth of real medieval towns and villages, where major trade routes and the landscape influenced how settlements formed and developed.

  • Spreading outward from a central marketplace, build your residential, commercial, and industrial districts following the natural lay of the land. Establish farms based on soil fertility, position hunting grounds according to animal populations, and ensure access to adequate resource deposits and forests to provide the raw materials needed for growth.
  • Assign areas for housing and watch your residents build their homes in accordance with the historical burgage plot system. Each area will be subdivided based on your roads and the allotted space, and homes will scale accordingly.
  • Build extensions behind larger homes to generate resources that would not otherwise be available. Homeowners don't just pay taxes – they grow vegetables, raise chickens and goats, and otherwise supply themselves and other townsfolk with essential needs beyond what your managed farms, pastures, and industries can provide.
  • Guide your settlements through the unique demands and opportunities of each season, enjoying the bounty brought by spring rains and preparing for the harsh snows of winter.

headline_02ML.png

image_03_loop.gif

From boots to barley and hides to honey, Manor Lords features a great variety of goods fitting of the era. Materials need to be transported and processed into finished products through production chains, and you must balance the basic needs of your people against the desire to produce luxury items to ensure happiness, manufacture trade goods for export, or forge arms and armor to aid in your conquests.

  • Resources are littered across the map, encouraging you to expand and establish multiple specialized settlements. Extract valuable ores from your mining colonies, while villages devoted to agriculture, herding, or hunting supply the grains and meats needed to feed your growing populations. Will you spend your hard-earned influence to first acquire a rich source of iron for your smiths, or will you prioritize regions with fertile soil to serve as your breadbasket?
  • Unchecked expansion will have a direct effect on the environment. Herds of deer will migrate away from encroaching civilization, lack of crop rotation will worsen soil fertility, and cutting down too many trees will result in deforestation.
  • Establish trade routes and sell surplus goods to traveling merchants to enrich your population. Manufacturing and exporting a variety of goods will provide wealth with which to upgrade your peoples’ homes, import goods you can’t produce yourself, and through taxes on said wealth, fill your own coffers.

headline_03ML.png

image_04_loop.gif

Yours is but a small parcel of land in a vast territory, and the competing ambitions between you and rival lords will inevitably lead to conflict. Lead your people into battle, not as expendable units to be easily replenished, but as your beloved loyal subjects where every death is a cost worth considering.

  • Train a retinue of skilled warriors to fight battles alongside the levies you raise from the town militia. At times these soldiers will be needed to suppress banditry, and at other times you will lead your men into battle to conquer or defend territory. When needed, mercenaries are a costly option to bolster your ranks. Will you raise the militia at the first sign of trouble, bringing your economy to a stand-still as your peasants pick up arms and rush to form ranks, or will you spend your personal wealth to hire bands of sellswords instead?
  • Command real-time tactical battles, taking into consideration fatigue, weather conditions, and equipment. Position your troops wisely – a smaller force can defeat a larger enemy, if commanded well.
  • Feel the cost of battle, even in victory, as each fallen soldier represents a lost person from your city.

headline_04ML.png

image_05_loop.gif

MOTION CAPTURE

Mocap goes well in pair with 3d scanning to make the art direction of the game more shifted towards realism and immersion.
It especially helps to give the battles a more natural and authentic feel.​

PHOTOGRAMMETRY

Utilizing Quixel Megascans as well as hand-made photogrammetry has sped up the development greatly, but also increased the visual fidelity.​

SIMULATION

Destruction simulations are pre-calculated in Houdini to allow the most detailed visuals, with possible use of real time cutting-edge Chaos Physics in the future. The pre-fractured structures are used for construction process as well.​
mocap.gif
scanning.gif
destr.gif

EARLY ACCESS

A few words from the Dev before the launch into Early Access​

Hey everyone,
It's been quite a journey so far, but it won't stop on April 26th. During development, the core tester group was around 130+ people. Given the popularity of the game, I'm pretty sure there is going to be a wave of feedback that I will need to address after the early access launch.
I wanted to address a few things for everyone who intends on buying the game on April 26th...

What this game is not.
-Manor Lords is not a Total War competitor. It's a citybuilder with battles. Yes, battles are there, but not as huge or as frequent as some of you might expect. The majority of gameplay is focused on citybuilding and management.
-It's not a Empire Management style Grand Strategy game either. The map has regions, but you won't be able to conquer the whole Europe, nor have marriages or anything like that. The game is designed to play at a much smaller scale.
-It's not an RPG either. If you played KCD or Mount&Blade, ML is a different type of game. There is a visit mode in Manor Lords which allows you to walk around your town, but it's an experimental, cosmetic bonus feature, the game is really meant to be played from the "bird's eye" perspective, like a strategy game (almost always) should. There won't be any first person gameplay.
-It's not a competitive, fast paced RTS like Age of Empires or Starcraft. A lot of the game mechanics focus on aesthetics of your town and resources take some time to be transported around the map. This results mostly in a more of a relaxed experience, with high intensity moments spicing up atmospheric citybuilding rather than the game being at high intensity all the time.

This will be an early access release.

Yes, it must be disappointing, but I think it's the right choice. It's my first serious game and not only some stuff is still unfinished, but I bet you guys will ask me to change some things you don't necessarily like. But I want to pursue an open development strategy of a back and forth between me and you, I think it worked great for the game so far (I'm comparing to times where there wasn't even a testing group and I was developing in a bubble).
The publisher and I recently shared the game with content creators all over the world.
Feel free to check out numerous streams and let's plays out there before buying
to make sure this is the game for you!
That said, the reception has been super positive so far for which I’m very grateful. I think the game should find a way into the hearts of players who expected Manor Lords to be what it is, a realistic, organic, authentic city builder with real time battles.

Roadmap
I do not plan on releasing a roadmap yet. I've made a mistake once or twice before, of promising and working on a feature only to find out that the testers didn't care as much as I did and that they actually wanted something else. So even if I have a plan, I want to adopt the philosophy of "listen, verify, implement". This way I expect the first month of patches to be just bug fixes and polish. During that time, together with Hooded Horse, we’ll be collecting your feedback and then prioritizing work based on what we hear.
I'm still considering whether to keep the testing of future patches closed or open, my current idea is to have an open pre_release beta branch so that everyone who owns the game can check and test the most recent pre-release unstable version of the game and contribute if they want to. And keeping the main branch as the previous most stable version. Though let me know, maybe you'd prefer me to keep the unstable versions to a closed testing group?
As always, thanks for following and all the support. I’ll certainly keep the updates more frequent here once the early access officially starts.

Have a good one!
Greg

Why Early Access?​

“We love considering and implementing ideas from players, and we will use Early Access to both expand and improve the game. Early Access provides a great way of involving players in the development process, and we are looking forward to working with the community to make a better game together.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?​

“We might remain in Early Access for around a year, but that might change depending on how the design develops with player feedback.”

How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?​

“The full version of the game is planned to have additional content influenced by community feedback during Early Access, however, the structure and major mechanics of the game are already present now. We also plan to conduct additional polishing, balancing, and bug fixing during the Early Access period.”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?​

“The Early Access version is fully playable and has all the content and features described on the About This Game section of the store page. This includes fleshed out medieval city building, resource management and a detailed combat experience.”

Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?​

“We might increase the price during the Early Access period as additional content and features are added.”

How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?​

“We love involving the community in development and are active on our Discord and the Steam forums. We want to hear all suggestions, bug reports, and player feedback in order to make a better game together.”


SCREENSHOTS

GprczUs.jpeg
yQedfwb.jpeg
cGVlR7Y.jpeg
BZjC4Dz.jpeg
m4EI2v8.jpeg
wI74nri.jpeg
jJPXOmh.jpeg
dDG5HSO.jpeg
s6dqaD5.jpeg


TRAILERS




SOCIAL

 
Last edited:

Maiden Voyage

Gold™ Member

FAQ

What engine is this on?
- Unreal Engine 4. At the moment, there are no plans to upgrade to UE5.

Are you truly working on this alone?
- I'm the only permanent studio member, but I do cooperate more and more with freelancers. Sometimes I buy assets to speed up the development (eg. Megascans), and recently I partnered with a professional QA company called QLOC. I also have a publisher – Hooded Horse – who takes care of the marketing and distribution.

When is the release date?
- Manor Lords will release into early access for PC on April 26th, 2024.

What platforms is it coming to?
- Manor Lords will release into early access for PC via Steam, GOG, and the Microsoft store. It will also be available day one via PC Games Pass. An Xbox console version is coming at a later date.

Wait, what, you’re developing a console version?
- Currently, Manor Lords is confirmed for PC and Xbox platforms. We will provide additional console information at a later date.

How much will the game cost?
- The final price will be announced when the game launches into early access.

Are you launching into early access? How long will it be in early access for?
- Yes, the initial launch on PC next April will be via early access. How long will depend on things like player feedback and development needs.

Will there be a mode without combat?
- Yes.

Are battles on a separate map?
- All gameplay is happening on a single map, real-time (with speed controls/pause).

Will there be walls and fortifications? Will there be naval battles? Cavalry?
- These are all features I want to add after I launch the initial early access and fix all the problems with base gameplay.

Will there be different cultures? Is there a campaign?
- The EA launch version of the game is going to be a single faction and sandbox only. However, exploring different cultures and themes in the future is something I’ve thought about.

Multiplayer?
- I want to polish the single-player experience first.

How can I support the project? Can I preorder the game?
- If you're here discussing the game and sharing info, you're already supporting me a great deal. Wishlisting on Steam helps a ton, because it raises visibility. If you want to help financially I did set up a Patreon page, but don't worry about it too much: https://www.patreon.com/GregStyczen

Will there be another demo?
- There are no plans for another demo at this time.

What is planned for the initial early access build?
- Early Access will have:
City-building – Develop your region from a tiny village to a dense town, build industries, unlock development branches, plan and upgrade your Manor.​
Army management & battles – Draft villagers, hire and upgrade retinue, and hire mercenaries to fight against bandits and invading lords.​
Claims – Earn influence and lay claims to neighboring lands.​
A small selection of different modes and scenarios, as well as initial versins of things like policies, and the technology tree.​

Will there be mod support?
- Yes, but I don’t plan on implementing it until after 1.0, at least.

When did you start developing the game?
- I started in July 2017.

What about guns?
- If I do them, it will probably be the last of all the things to do, with an option to turn them off for people who don't like them.

What about <insert other feature here>?
- I’ve thought about a lot of different features and looked at plenty of suggestions from the community. I have an idea in my head regarding what I’d like to do, but I will also be responding to community feedback once the game is out in early access. You can try searching the discord to see if I’ve spoken specifically about the feature you have in mind – I’ve been asked about most things at this point.
My preference for the moment is to focus on a modest feature set and then polish it to seven heavens, so the answer to many questions regarding feature suggestions will be “probably after launch” or something similar.

Confirmed things that will not be in the game
- Here are some features that have been requested that I can confirm won’t be in the game. This is not an exhaustive list:
No dynasty mechanics​
No heroes or leader units​
No single-person units in general, for now​
No town guard​

How can I suggest things to add to the game?
- You can suggest it here: https://feedback.manorlords.com/
 
Last edited:
Played this shit until 3.30 last night. Wife nearly killed me lol. Such an immersive and beautiful game and easily one of the best looking strategy games of all time imo. It nails all the stuff where indies usually stumble: the UI, camera controls, audio, music... It's all great.

Plenty of bugs though. Mostly stuff related to pathfinding, but nothing gamebreaking yet.
 

DavidGzz

Member
Starting to figure it out. I was wondering why nothing was being built....I had no families available. No need to fill the working slots completely.
 

keraj37

Contacted PSN to add his card back to his account
Looks great, but I will wait until is in more mature state, maybe with good mods out.

I used to love Lords of The Realm II, and I still play it from time to time thanks to GOG version, and this game reminds me of it
386592781.jpg
 
Last edited:

Sentenza

Member
I've been spending a few hours on this yesterday (from work, uh).
It's mostly great but there are areas where the UI could use some significant improvements (mouse zooming in where you are pointing when using a mouse wheel, buildings being a bit more distinctive in general and ESPECIALLY marked more clearly when zooming out, etc).

The fine tuning with the balance of some mechanics seem to be all over the place, too.
As an example... Even after a few restarts and learning how some foundations work, I was in a constant RACE to keep up with the population growth and giving people houses. It got to the point where I was FULL TIME committed to building houses and I still couldn't keep up.

Also, I'm clearly missing something because for the life of me I can't seem to understand how am I supposed to make any money after spending the initial ones, even if drowning in other resources.
 

DavidGzz

Member
Also, I'm clearly missing something because for the life of me I can't seem to understand how am I supposed to make any money after spending the initial ones, even if drowning in other resources.


I just built a trading post, maybe that will bring some in otherwise I'm screwed.
 

DavidGzz

Member
Yeah the trading Post really helped out I'm making some money now but now I'm afraid that I'm going to sell too much of my food and I don't know how to limit that yet. Down to a 5 month supply and I'm panicked. Lol
 

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
Some tips from a YouTuber if you want some info on the mechanics. Trade starts at 5:53


Yeah the trading Post really helped out I'm making some money now but now I'm afraid that I'm going to sell too much of my food and I don't know how to limit that yet. Down to a 5 month supply and I'm panicked. Lol

Good video, but that Youtuber is working off of his early access creator version. Trade got nerfed in the retail version we're playing. If you export something too much, you crash the global market and the export price goes way down, reducing your profits. Trade is still okay in small amounts, but if you want to make stupid amounts of cash like in the early access videos, you'll have to diversify your economy and trade multiple things.
 

Sentenza

Member
Now that I got used to them, I have to say that the trading posts are a bit TOO useful.
Late game you are basically better relying on them for every single resource than bothering with pretty much anything else.

Especially if you take some of the (absolutely BROKEN talents on the "merchant" tree that significantly lower the cost for establishing trade routes and for buying stuff from other regions.

I'm not even exaggerating. I wasted a couple of hours trying to keep up with an extremely convolute farming rotation setup and make it work. while struggling with constant famine (all of FERTILE ground, I might add) and then when I said "Fuck it" and I started to import pretty much EVERY resource I needed in the HUNDREDS I literally resolved any shortage with food, market stalls and what else AND I snowballed into getting a "growth win" only minutes later.

What's absurd is that somehow I was still MAKING more money that I was spending just by selling a bunch of common shit in the process.

This is definitely an area where they will benefit from a significant rebalance.
That said, I still have to interact with the combat to any significant degree, but I read a bunch of horror stories about the AI on Steam.
 

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
Now that I got used to them, I have to say that the trading posts are a bit TOO useful.
Late game you are basically better relying on them for every single resource than bothering with pretty much anything else.

Especially if you take some of the (absolutely BROKEN talents on the "merchant" tree that significantly lower the cost for establishing trade routes and for buying stuff from other regions.

I'm not even exaggerating. I wasted a couple of hours trying to keep up with an extremely convolute farming rotation setup and make it work. while struggling with constant famine (all of FERTILE ground, I might add) and then when I said "Fuck it" and I started to import pretty much EVERY resource I needed in the HUNDREDS I literally resolved any shortage with food, market stalls and what else AND I snowballed into getting a "growth win" only minutes later.

What's absurd is that somehow I was still MAKING more money that I was spending just by selling a bunch of common shit in the process.

This is definitely an area where they will benefit from a significant rebalance.
That said, I still have to interact with the combat to any significant degree, but I read a bunch of horror stories about the AI on Steam.

Yup, even with the nerf, they're still very strong, and trivializes some other production chains, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but can potentially be problematic for the overall gameplay loop and developer intent.

Banished had the same "problem" with the firewood economy trade meta. Anno 1800 with the Docklands DLC as well.
 

Yoda

Member
Nine years ago lol:

There's a bit more going on in Manor Lords. Combat for one, but banished was essentially a grid, this is gridless which is prone to never ending edgecases for games like this.

Played it for about 10 hours. Very solid base, but it's rough around the edges. Combat feels a bit simplistic. Very impressive for a solo dev (granted I heard he used contractors).
 

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
There's a bit more going on in Manor Lords. Combat for one, but banished was essentially a grid, this is gridless which is prone to never ending edgecases for games like this.

Played it for about 10 hours. Very solid base, but it's rough around the edges. Combat feels a bit simplistic. Very impressive for a solo dev (granted I heard he used contractors).

I know. The reason I linked that was because of what I said in that post regarding trading systems to supplement what I said in the previous post. I couldn't quote it directly because the thread is locked.

Me 10 years ago said:
You mean the firewood trading economy?

Here's how it works - firewood and ale are the most profitable goods you can make. The reason is because logs are cheap, and firewood is expensive, and one log produces lots of firewood from an educated log cutter.

So, once you reach a population of 100 or 200 (I think that's the threshold for merchants to start bringing in the max amount of goods), you spam trading posts and woodcutters and stockpiles.

Have them all fairly close together in order to minimize travel time, and produce firewood like a madman. Buy as much raw logs as you can. Stock your trading posts with firewood. You can buy food with the firewood. Set your traders to auto purchase logs and food. Now you'll have a shit ton of food.
 

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
Combat feels a bit simplistic.

It does but there's a good base and there's room to grow, IMO. I like how your military strength is also tied up to your economic potential as well, so you need to make choices. In other games like Stronghold, for example, you military units have no bearing on your economy at all.

Very impressive for a solo dev (granted I heard he used contractors).

IIRC, the contract work was for historical accuracy consulting, and some art assets, but that's about it.
 

LiquidMetal14

hide your water-based mammals
Reasonable enough. Unfortunately I'm knee deep in Kingdom Come Deliverance. It's awesome and scratches the midevil fix for sure. Makes me want to try this but I have to stick with one game at a time.
 

AJUMP23

Parody of actual AJUMP23
Here are the things that I like and things that need to be fixed IMO.

Like:
Free form building is fun
Job system is good. Assign people they become merchants.
Housing with additions like chickens or orchards is excellent, then becoming artisans is cool.


Needs improvement.
Early game I Have no way to rally troops
Armor trade is costly
The enemy has a about 10 groups of troops before I set up one.
I have no idea how many fields one family can handle.
 

Sentenza

Member
Someone owns us an explanation about the trollish way the "battle announcement" is handled, anyway.

"HEY DUDE, YOU AND THE ENEMY LORD ARE TOTALLY GOING TO FIGHT ON THAT REMOTE YELLOW CIRCLE!". So you start your *excruciatingly slow* march toward the promised land with your army of inepts who couldn't maintain a formation to save their lives (literally) and as soon you get on the spot "Never gonna give you up" start blasting at full volume and the enemy army comes charging from the OUTSIDE border of your own region, half a world map away.

...What in the flying fuck?
 

calistan

Member
Maxed out my town and got 100% approval, but the army stuff is still a bit of a mystery to me. I wasted 2,000 influence by trying to claim an area without having the force to back it up.

Getting the town to the next level was really slow at first, but the last two or three levels came really quickly once I started importing all the goods. There's a perk that removes the +10 tax on imports, and with all the plots satisfied I could basically upgrade them all to the highest level immediately.

The game is really promising but it has a lot of work left to do. I'll probably wait until it's more complete before going any further.
 

calistan

Member
Couldn't resist, so I had one more go to muster an army and test out the combat...

Damn, the fighting is no fun at all. Maybe it's too much to expect something like the Total War games, but this is really poor. There's very little feedback about how you're doing.

My guys just stood around while the enemy fired arrows, and if I told them to chase the archers down, the enemy moved away at the exact same speed. How can archers operate in a forest anyway? I think I was winning, but new enemy units kept forming miles away and advanced very slowly. I got tired of waiting for something to happen, so I quit.

Anyway, I guess as a game preview this has served its purpose.
 

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
If anyone else wants to know how most of the current meta strategies work, Winter did a good guided playthrough, reaching economic victory before the end of year 2. The only thing I didn't notice him min/maxing was the berries, but he didn't really need to at any rate.

 

ahtlas7

Member
I caved in and bought it. Playing it without combat to get a feeling for how the game works.
About 5 years in. Somehow managed to trade all my wheat and smash all my berries into dye just as winter set in. Mass starvation erupted but my little people harvested the fields in Dec-Jan, built a 2nd mill and pumped out just enough grain and bread so no one died. It was nail biting and I loved it.
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom